


Loyalty

by iceprinceofbelair



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Gen, tri-wizard tournament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 18:23:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3619755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceprinceofbelair/pseuds/iceprinceofbelair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cedric finds Harry outside in the rain in the middle of the night following the first task. Being a Tri-Wizard Champion certainly takes its toll. They come to a mutual understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loyalty

Every time he saw one of those ridiculous “Potter Stinks!” badges, Cedric felt more than a little ashamed. Sure, he’d been put out at first. Harry Potter was in the limelight all the time. How hard could it be for him to give up his precious spotlight to someone else for once? It had taken just a few hours for this feeling to wear off, however, and it was replaced immediately by shame. That had been cruel. After all, Harry was just a kid – barely fourteen. Even if he had put his name in that goblet – a notion Cedric was doubting more and more by the day – he didn’t deserve to be treated like this.

What finally convinced Cedric that Harry had definitely not nominated himself for champion was the night he found him curled up in a tight ball beneath a tree down by the lake well past curfew. The rain had been lashing down heavily for the past day and a half and, by the time Cedric found him, the poor kid was soaked through.

 _“Protego,”_ he muttered, sitting down next to him on the wet grass where the shield charm sheltered them from the near torrential downpour. 

Harry was shivering and his skin was flushed red from the cold. His arms were bare. As a Prefect, Cedric should probably have taken points for being out of bed – quite far out of bed, actually – in the small hours but he couldn’t bring himself to distress Harry further. They sat in silence for a long time before Cedric cleared his throat.

“You didn’t do it, did you?” He said. There was no need to explain. Since the beginning of the year, “it” had only been one thing.

Harry shook his head, looking thoroughly miserable. “You can keep your eternal glory. I don’t want it.”

Cedric looked down. The more he thought about it – and he thought about it a lot these days – Harry really did seem to dislike attention. He’d expected an arrogant, spoilt child to show up at the school four years ago but the reality remained that Harry was, in fact, quiet and unassuming with a huge capacity for both bravery and loyalty. Cedric didn’t struggle to admit his admiration for him.

Seeing him like this, so utterly defeated, made Cedric’s stomach twist uncomfortably.

“I’m not sure I do either,” he admitted quietly, turning his gaze to the lake once more. “You’ve figured out the egg then?” He asked, guessing Harry was here for the same reason he was. Harry nodded once. “Know what you’re going to do about it?”

Harry immediately shook his head but Cedric didn’t think he was playing his cards close to his chest. He thought from the way Harry swallowed his obvious fear that, at this point, the kid was going to drown himself within the first minute. Without thinking much of it, he placed a hand on Harry’s knee and squeezed, trying to communicate everything he couldn’t say; they were in this together, Hogwarts Champions, and somehow they’d get through it.

“I really thought that dragon was gonna kill me,” Harry muttered and his voice was hoarse like he’d been crying.

“Me too,” Cedric relied absently, recalling how Harry had told him what to expect during the first task for no reason other than he felt it was unfair to let Cedric go in there unprepared. Though he had no way to be sure, Cedric was quite certain Harry would have told him even if Fleur and Krum hadn’t known.

For a long time, they stared out over the lake, watching the tentacles of the giant squid occasionally breech the surface. Cedric considered the boy beside him. After all, that’s all he was – just a boy, a child. Cedric remembered being shocked when Dumbledore had announced that Harry would be allowed to compete. How could the Headmaster possibly expect a fourth year to stand a chance against three seventeen year olds in the most dangerous competition in the magical world? Yet, hadn’t Harry held his own admirably against that Horntail just weeks ago?

Still, he was just a kid.

A weight dropped unexpectedly onto his shoulder and realised Harry had rested his head there. He felt a pang of sympathy in his chest. Silently, he wrapped one arm around Harry’s shoulders and let him cry himself out. It made Cedric decidedly uncomfortable to see Harry Potter in such a state. Behaviour like this was so incredibly out of character that Cedric wasn’t sure how to respond.

“M’sorry,” Harry muttered eventually, pulling away and attempting to dry his eyes on his sodden sleeve.

“Don’t be daft,” Cedric waved away his apology and stood, offering a hand to help Harry to his feet. Harry gazed at his hand for a moment before accepting it. As they made their way back up to the castle, Cedric said, “Pomfrey’ll have our heads for this, you know that?”

He was pleased just to see Harry smile. “Not to mention McGonagall,” he said with a shudder which might have been brought on either by fear or chill.

“Wouldn’t want to get on her bad side,” Cedric said with a smile, thinking fondly of the fierce head of Gryffindor house. “You’d better have a shower before bed. You’re soaked.”

They were quiet again after that and Cedric listened to the sloshing of water in their shoes as they squelched upstairs. Filch would definitely kill them if he could see them now. Thinking about Filch reminded him that they were, in fact, out of bed way past curfew. Usually, by this time, the teachers had finished their evening patrol but this year, like the last, had everyone on edge. It wasn’t unusual for teachers to take up patrol again when they had trouble sleeping. Cedric couldn’t blame them. After all, two of their students were engaging in a competition which might end in their deaths. It would give anyone nightmares.

Harry made no comment when Cedric accompanied him all the way to Gryffindor tower lest he run into someone along the way. Neither of them had stopped shivering.

The Fat Lady was sleeping when they arrived and Cedric took the opportunity to catch Harry by the shoulder and say, “I know we’re supposed to be in competition but, if you need to vent about it or anything, I’m usually in the library these days. I know it’s, um, hard to discuss it with your friends. They don’t really get it, y’know?”

The way Harry looked at him was almost painful. He looked so genuinely grateful. Cedric couldn’t understand why he’d ever believed him arrogant.

“Thanks, Cedric,” he said and his voice sounded tight. He turned to give the password but stopped. Assuming he felt uncomfortable doing so in front of a member of another house, Cedric set off down the stairs. He hadn’t made it two steps when Harry said, “Wait!”

Cedric met Harry’s eyes, recognising the exhaustion in them. He saw the same in the mirror every day.

“Sometimes I think we misjudge you,” he said gently. “I think if, maybe, we were all a bit more like Hufflepuffs, the world might be a better place to live.”

Cedric smiled. “Maybe,” he agreed. “But we won’t make it through this tournament without embracing our Gryffindor side.”

They shared a moment of mutual understanding which was broken by the Fat Lady’s sleepy voice.

“Are you going to stand there all night? Some of us need our beauty sleep, you know.”


End file.
